A young orphan’s dog turns out to be considerably more than she seems in this Canadian wilderness tale set in the years following the American Revolution. Unwanted by his Scots relatives, Callum goes involuntarily from Edinburgh to his Uncle Rory’s remote farm in Upper Canada. Just before arriving, he impulsively spends most of his savings to buy an abused dog, plus a small, sealed box, from a vicious, oddly tattooed stranger. It’s a good investment, as it turns out, for Dog not only seems to understand everything that’s said to her, but repeatedly rescues Callum from the consequences of his own carelessness or ignorance, often saving lives in the process. Dog’s almost human awareness—along with selkie stories and songs from his homeland—gives Callum clues to her true nature and a willingness to credit them. Subject to severe mood swings driven by his distaste for farm work on one side and a growing love for his cousins and their kind-hearted father on the other, Callum makes an appealing protagonist whose relationship with Dog grows into warm respect after sundry adventures. Rather than take her cues from traditional selkie tales and end on a tragic or poignant note, Chan has Callum give Dog her freedom—the human skin in the box—and discover that their friendship survives. A well-knit, outdoorsy tale. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-55074-895-5
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2001
Loosely connected to historical events, this tale of a 17th-century English town that isolated itself to prevent the plague from spreading celebrates selfless courage, but it does so at some distance, and within the confines of a contrived, ordinary story. Daughter of a prosperous, bookish squire, Nell Bullen has enjoyed an idyllic upbringing, and despite confirmed rumors of plague, eagerly accompanies her father to London when he is inducted into the Royal Academy. Guided by the up-and-coming Samuel Pepys, Nell tours the city, avoiding the plague-ridden districts until by mischance she witnesses a horrifying mass burial. Sobered, she returns to Branford, not long before the local tailor takes ill. Viewed largely from the distant safety of the manor house, the townfolks’ principled decision to stay put rather than flee, and their subsequent suffering, will seem a remote catastrophe to readers, and Nell’s stilted narrative style (“Among our visitors from London was a singular young man whom I misjudged completely at the start,”) gives this the artificiality of a formula romance. Though the act from which this story springs merits commemoration, the inner and outer devastation wrought by disease is more vividly captured in Cynthia DeFelice’s Apprenticeship of Lucas Whittaker (1996) and Anna Myers’s Graveyard Girl (1995). (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8037-2393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1999
Pulled in different directions by her heart and by family duty, a daughter of the noble Fujiwara clan also has an angry ghost to appease in this busy sequel to Little Sister (1996). Two years after Mitsuko entered the land of the dead in search of her sister’s soul, ominous dreams remind her of her vow to repair a small shrine in which she once took refuge. At the same time, her father announces that Mitsuko is to marry an 11- year-old prince. She once again calls on Goranu, the mischievous, immortal shape-changer who fell in love with her. Exchanging insults and tart retorts, the two grow closer as Mitsuko faces a dragon, the shrine’s vengeful kami (spirit), and a host of other supernatural beings. Under Goranu’s tutelage, Mitsuko learns how to use her wits, and by the end has overcome the treacherous kami, helped engineer the prince’s marriage to her sister, and even met Lord Emma-O in the Court of the Dead. More than most sequels, this story relies on knowledge of its predecessor. Dalkey supplies a glossary and historical postscript, but readers unfamiliar with the first book will miss nuances in characters and relationships, and have only a sketchy picture of the 12th- century locales and social patterns. Together, however, the two novels combine a courageous teenager’s well-articulated escape from the limits and preconceptions forced on her by a rigid, highly structured upbringing with a colorful, not altogether earnest, series of encounters with powerful beings from Buddhist and Shinto lore. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-15-201652-X
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1998
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